I was thinking the same when the Calendar showed "October 3rd"!
Unfortunately dinner before will not work for us. My wife and I will be trying to get the kids settled down and then rush over to DPAC, early entry will make this even more tricky. But who knows, if the baby-sitter reports that all is well at the end of the concert we might be up for drinks.

taylorneel, my husband and I will be in Durham for the show, and we would love to join other Cohenites for dinner. Would you like to tell me what name your reservations are for, so we can make reservations and sit together? Hope to see you there. . .

A lady friend and myself are driving from Wilmington to Durham for the show. (Likely be eating at Cuban Revolution, but without definite time of arrival, we'll have to hope for the best as far as getting a table...) I've managed to keep secret the fact we're going to be seated front row.

What is that sound? It's just me, taking what I need, from the store room, and what I need is a couple of suitcases -- packing today and leaving for Durham tomorrow with the family, will spend a few days with friends and head back home on Wednesday. Oh yes, there is this engagement on Tuesday night, something rather important, what was it again?

Imagine a fan base quantified not just by number of fans, but total amount of ardor. If you measure it that way, Leonard Cohen might be the most popular artist alive right now. While he's never been more than a good-sized cult figure, the cumulative rabidity of his fans is something to behold.

You can hear that love on Cohen's new in-concert album, "Live in London" (Columbia Records), on which the audience cheers rabidly at every opportunity and sometimes erupts mid-song at particularly piquant lines ("I was born with the gift of a golden voice"). And it will no doubt be on display Tuesday at the Durham Performing Arts Center, where the 75-year-old Montreal native plays as part of his first U.S. tour since the mid-'90s.

Show reviews have been stellar, which is ironic when you consider that this tour was initially motivated by mostly mercenary reasons: Cohen is broke and needs the money. But it's been just as much an artistic success as a financial one.

George Holt, who books shows at the N.C. Museum of Art Amphitheatre, traveled up to Merriweather Post Pavilion near Washington, D.C., to see Cohen perform earlier this year. He describes that show as "a totallovefest."

"I have to say that his near-bankruptcy - from that period of time when he was on a mountain meditating with a Zen master and his manager apparently made off with most of his savings - turned out to be kind of a blessing in disguise," says Holt. "Given his age, he probably would not be doing this tour if not for that. I'm guessing he had no idea it would be extended as it has been, and I think it's because he's having a ball. I don't know how anybody could not be buoyed by the kind of reception he's been getting, which seems consistently intense at every stop along the way."

Cohen made his name as a novelist and poet before turning to music, and he's an unlikely pop idol. And yet that's what he has become, belatedly, covered by a wide range of unlikely artists drawn by his conjuring of Old World decadence. The iconic "Hallelujah" is Cohen's most-covered song, in versions by everyone from Rufus Wainwright to the Swedish metal band Pain of Salvation.

His voice - a sonorous croak longer on expressiveness than range - is admittedly not for everyone. But it's the sonic equivalent of a character actor, and exactly the sound you'd expect to emerge from his hangdog face.

"He's not to everybody's taste," Holt says. "My wife considers him to be morose, but I happen to be a great fan of the timbre of his voice. I like his mature voice more than his younger voice. It's deeper and gravellier, but it suits him so well. And I've always loved his melodies. So many of his songs have this simple but richly melodic feeling about them."

Still, Cohen's songs ultimately come down to words, usually evoking the nuances of doom in devastating detail. His best songs, from "Suzanne" to "Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye," roll along at a stately pace with each and every syllable perfectly placed.

Django Haskins, frontman for the local band The Old Ceremony, goes back and forth on his favorite Cohen lines. He cites 1992's "Democracy" as a current favorite:

I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That Time cannot decay.
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
This little wild bouquet.

"It just doesn't get any better than that," Haskins says. "He's like laser-focused as a lyricist. He manages to be very emotional, while also maintaining this kind of amused, quizzical distance from the experiences he's talking about. That's an unusual combination, probably from years of Zen meditation and growing up in an incredibly cold climate. You get pretty introspective."

Haskins named his band after a Cohen album title, 1974's "New Skin for the Old Ceremony." So of course, he'll be on the second row at Cohen's Durham show.

"Tickets were ridiculously expensive, but he's one of those people where just being in his presence will be worth it," Haskins says. "This will sound like I'm a crazy stalker, but it's not just about the performance of the song. It's about the general wisdom he has accumulated in a long life as an artist. To be able to observe someone who has spent his life so well, that's a thing I'm really looking forward to. He's consistently been on a path of searching for some special meaning, not just a commercial enterprise."

I'm leaving early in the morning on my pilgrimage to Durham. This has truly been a week of highs and lows. I've spent every day in two hospitals that are forty miles apart. My father-in-law is in one. My mother is in the other. I didn't think I would be able to make the concert. They have both improved so my sister and I decided to go. It almost seems the fates conspire against me. I had tickets to see Mr. Cohen, for the first time, in May at Columbia, Maryland. I live in Eastern Kentucky and two days before that concert we were hit with major flooding. I was trapped at my house. The night before the concert the water went down quite a bit and I waded through knee high flood water, then hiked through wilderness a quarter of a mile to get to a road. I have a great husband who hiked with me and carried my suitcase. I drove all night to my sister's and then we left for Maryland and it took seven hours to get there. We had just enough time to change clothes and head out to the Pavilion. It was worth it. For three hours I was magically, musically transported to another world where all trials and tribulations were forgotten. I'm looking forward to reliving that experience and I hope to see you all there.

the area around the DPAC, and Durham in general, is pretty loose. street parking nearby is pretty available - I wouldn't expect alot of problems with traffic unless you get sucked into the Am tobacco circus.

me, I work about two blocks away, so I'll just walk down at six to pick up our tickets, and then we'll go to dinner - still haven't decided where. Dos Perros (gourmet Mexican, new, I still haven't been for dinner), parker and otis, or piedmont are all on the list.

quick ? I got one email that said opening act at 8, and one that said LC starts at 8. I haven't seen anything about an opener previously, can someone confirm?

Manamana, I received the same pair of emails. No other concert LC has done on this tour has had an opening act (so far as I've read), I don't think Durham would be any different. I think the first email was the "standard" reminder email, and then DPAC sent the follow-up because they realized they goofed.

The Will Call ticket counter at DPAC will open at 10:00am, after the email announcement said it was later I contacted Jarkko and he cleared it with DPAC management. The 10:00 opening time that was posted here in the forum is the correct time.